# Cloudflare R2 vs Fastio

> Cloudflare R2 scores 77.1 (BB) to Fastio's 55.2 (C) for file sharing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-r2-vs-fast-io
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-r2-vs-fast-io.md (~2,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-r2-vs-fast-io.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-r2-vs-fast-io.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Cloudflare R2 scores 77.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Fastio's 55.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Fastio leads on payments & pricing. Both do file sharing.

- Cloudflare R2: grade BB, 77.1/100, rank #23 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cloudflare-r2.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-r2.json
- Fastio: grade C, 55.2/100, rank #663 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fast-io.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/fast-io.json
- Best file storage and sharing APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/file-storage/index.md
- All 75 storage comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/file-storage/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Cloudflare R2 (BB)

Good for: Files an agent stores and then serves to the public, where free egress dominates, and for operators who want short-lived, path-scoped credentials.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 82 against 33
- Schema & documentation, 92 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 90 against 73
- Security & auth, 83 against 74
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 70
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 61

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: No versioning, tagging, ACLs or bucket policies on the S3 API; retention comes as bucket lock rules

### Fastio (C)

Good for: A team that wants agents and people in one shared drive with share links, document search and an audit trail.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No free tier. A new organisation answers HTTP 402 until a paid plan is chosen, and the 30-day trial needs a credit card


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cloudflare R2 | Fastio | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 82 | 33 | Cloudflare R2 +49 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 65 | Cloudflare R2 +27 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 73 | Cloudflare R2 +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 83 | 74 | Cloudflare R2 +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 30 | Fastio +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 70 | Cloudflare R2 +17 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 61 | Cloudflare R2 +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **77.1 · BB** | **55.2 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cloudflare R2 | Fastio |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Cloudflare | VividEngine, LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://<account-id>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com` | `https://mcp.fast.io/mcp/tools` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 or MIT (wrangler) | Proprietary service under Fast's terms of service. The CLI, which includes a local MCP server, is Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 35 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-24 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-12 | 2026-10-02 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-10-02 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 4.5k stars, 27M npm/wk | 1 stars, 653 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (8) | none |

## Verdicts

**Cloudflare R2.** Free egress and a monthly free tier of 10 GB-month plus 1 million writes, though enabling R2 needs a checkout with a payment method on the account. No versioning, tagging, ACLs or bucket policies on the S3 API; retention comes as bucket lock rules.

**Fastio.** OAuth with PKCE, scoped API keys with read, write and admin modes, and separate read and write MCP tools limit what an agent can touch. There is no free tier, the 30-day trial needs a card, and no status page, SLA, OpenAPI file or public changelog was found.

## Before you call either

### Cloudflare R2

1. Set region to `auto` and the endpoint to https://<account-id>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com. `us-east-1` also works, other region names fail
2. Ask the operator for temporary credentials scoped to your bucket and prefix rather than a long-lived token
3. For public reads put a custom domain or an r2.dev subdomain on the bucket; presigned URLs only sign the S3 hostname
4. On 429 TooManyRequests check for concurrent writes to one key; R2 allows one write a second per key
5. Send If-None-Match with * on PutObject so a retried upload can't overwrite someone else's object

### Fastio

1. Connect to `https://mcp.fast.io/mcp/tools` for named tools or `https://mcp.fast.io/mcp/code` for the 8-tool code mode. The URL fixes the tool set for the session
2. Call `action="describe"` on a tool before first use. Parameters live there, not in the tool list
3. To update a file, upload again with the same parent folder and filename. Deleting first loses the version history
4. On 429 wait until `x-ve-limit-expires` or the `Retry-After` value. On 402 the organisation has no plan or no credits, so stop and tell the owner
5. Ask the owner for a key scoped to one workspace with `r` or `rw`. A key made without scopes carries `user:*:rw` across the account

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Cloudflare R2 or Fastio?

Cloudflare R2 scores 77.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Fastio's 55.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Fastio leads on payments & pricing.

### Do Cloudflare R2 and Fastio need an API key?

Cloudflare R2 needs an API key. Fastio takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Cloudflare R2 and Fastio without installing anything?

Yes. Cloudflare R2 has a hosted endpoint at https://<account-id>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com and Fastio at https://mcp.fast.io/mcp/tools.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-r2-vs-fast-io.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-r2-vs-fast-io.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "cloudflare-r2", "b": "fast-io"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare cloudflare-r2 fast-io`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-r2.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/fast-io.json

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